Andree Seu blogs on how easy it would be to adapt Biblical stories for the screen.

“Okay, so what does a Christian film look like?” one of you asks over lattes at Starbucks, your pens poised above blank sheets of paper.

“It tells it how it is,” replies Johnny. “The Christian is nothing if not a prophet of truth.”

I wish I could remember the title of a book one of my college English professors said was the best story from Jesus’ time period he had read. It something like Ben Hur, a story about a man or boy who lived around 30 A.D. and meets Jesus at one point in the story. It was juvenile fiction, but I don’t remember any more than that.

Some British literature professors say literature has no value, according to a new book by Rónán McDonald, The Death of the Critic. It’s “a polemic in favour of the critic as a ‘knowledgeable arbiter.’ In McDonald’s account, it is a reason for sharp regret that no one cares any more about ‘the critic.'”

In a section on blogs, online reviews, and the prominence of reader groups, McDonald “argues that the demise of critical expertise brings not a liberating democracy of taste, but conservatism and repetition. ‘The death of the critic’ leads not to the sometimes vaunted ’empowerment’ of the reader, but to ‘a dearth of choice.'” Not that critics just have better taste than everyone else, that their judgments are purely subject to their whims. Critics should have the knowledge to help us see the value of some books over others. “McDonald proposes that cultural value judgements, while not objective, are shared, communal, consensual and therefore open to agreement as well as dispute. But the critics who could help us to reach shared evaluations have opted out.”

I’ll try to put something substantive on the blog later today, but let me counter Lars’ sickness posts with a declaration that I have arrived. My life is indeed complete now. My people inform me that I have donated one gallon of blood (O negative) through my local non-profit org. Blood Assurance. There’s no need to thank me.

I felt considerably better last evening, and thought maybe it would all be done by this morning. But I woke up to find myself weak and coughing. Haven’t even had the energy to read much today.

On the upside, I’ve completely lost my appetite.

Sorry, this is all you get from me today. I have the flu. It appears to be the famous “24 hour bug,” because I started feeling lousy last night about this time, and I’m coming back now. But not enough to produce a decent post. I’ll be back tomorrow, I trust.

Scott Stein announces “A Frank Conversation with Frank Wilson.” That’s Frank Wilson of Books, Inq.

on April 11, 2008, 2:00 PM, at Paul Peck Center, 3142 Market Street, Drexel University, Philadelphia. I will not be there, because I don’t have a pass to leave my room this year. Maybe the warden will get me a live feed, but he’s been in a bad mood lately, so I doubt it. More information on Scott’s blog.

You know that Kimbooktu has a focus on bookshelves and home libraries. Here she links to some cool designs in shelving, some more practical than others. I love this Ellipse Bookcase. It has a hobbit feel. This Ceiling Book Storage is impressive too.

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The question should be, “How many country names can you spell correctly under pressure?” I burned seconds trying to spell “Mozambique” and “Colombia” and many I would not have tried.

I’ve been thinking of my sister lately. I think she’s a fan of NPR’s “What, What . . . Don’t Tell Me!” It’s hilarious. I have it on now, one of the repeats they have during the weekend. Have you heard it?

Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea makes this comment on something my sister told me she is enjoying too: “Don’t get me started on having Michael York . . . ruining The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe from the Chronicles of Narnia boxed set I got — although I have to say the bad experience was nicely balanced by the heaven of listening to Jeremy Northam reading The Silver Chair – oh yummy yummy, I could just eat him up!”